


Lucky

by sallyamongpoison



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, mention of vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: Set a few years before The Loser's Club are called back together, Eddie Kaspbrak just so happens to win tickets to see Rich Tozier perform. Neither of them are quite able to shake that something seems off, but they can both count themselves lucky that it happened.





	Lucky

Luck was weird. Luck was something that one Edward “Eddie” Kaspbrak definitely did not believe in. Luck was nothing more than good timing and having at least two extra brain cells not caught up with minimal survival functions. But luck was weird. In a lot of ways Eddie had been lucky, even if he didn’t believe it, but it had always been a much more productive kind of way. He was the right guy around to do the right job. He just so happened to be at the right place at the right time to meet the right girl. The apartment they wanted was listed right when they were talking about moving in.

The list went on.

But this? This was a new kind of luck. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the right word for it. If anything, Eddie was lucky that he just so happened to have the right knowledge of the right thing at the right time. And for what? Some...radio call in contest for tickets? That wasn’t something Edward “Eddie” Kaspbrak ever cared about. He never cared to push his luck like that. 

_ “The lucky caller number six who can tell us Rich Tozier’s favorite obscure horror movie will win tickets to his show this weekend!” _

It hadn’t even occurred to him. He’d been driving, of all things, and the radio had just been on whatever Myra had been listening to the day before. Eddie never even listened to the radio, let alone paid any attention to contests or giveaways or whatever else. It was too much trouble. If he wanted tickets to something he would buy them himself. What was the point of trying to edge out a bunch of people by mere seconds for something he could do on his own?

“Psh,” he mumbled to himself as he shook his head, “he doesn’t even write his own material.”

But the phone had been in his hand. Ringing. Ringing and someone had picked up.

“You’re lucky caller number six! Give it a guess and-”

“I Was A Teenage Werewolf” left Eddie’s mouth in the most deadpan, matter of fact tone he’d probably ever used in his life. Somewhere in the back of his mind they were a collection of words that made absolute sense, but saying them out loud felt disjointed and almost wrong. They felt strange in his mouth, but had come to him without a second thought. Eddie _ knew _ that answer. He knew it in the same way he rattled off percentages at work after long hours of research. It was so easy that it could have been living at the tip of his tongue for the last twenty years and he’d never even known. That answer had been a part of him. 

It shook him so badly that he had to pull over. Of course he told Myra it was traffic, but in reality something cold and sharp and hot and heady slammed into him. It was like a fever: his pulse raced, hands shook, shoulders hunched. When the DJ had congratulated him and asked how in the hell he could have known that Eddie barely heard him. Of course he had to have answered, had to have given his name, but the world around him felt altogether way too close and incredibly far away. It was like he was floating, drifting, and in his ears were the sounds of someone else. Someone_ s _ else. Kids. Laughing. Fighting. 

Screaming.

But he was lucky caller number six. That had to count for something.

\----

He didn’t get nervous before shows. Not really. Not anymore. It used to be he was the one puking in the alley before and after, but that hadn’t happened in at least five years. Sure he still got the odd stomach flip, especially if it was something high profile, but these days he was at home on stage as he was in his actual apartment. Every crowd was a bit different, but he had enough material these days that he could feel them out and switch it up if need be. That, and he hated doing the same fucking routine over and over again. Nothing drove him crazy like that did.

It meant a lot of writer’s room meetings, but that didn’t even matter anymore.

They were backstage, he and his assistant. Not out the back where there was more air, but just backstage. They had something like ten minutes before curtain call, and Rich had no real intention of going up there to pace. He was content to let everyone get their drinks and their seat, and he’d wander up there whenever he was ready. That was how this worked now. He didn’t have to beg and plead to get gigs like he used to. Now people called _ him _ and asked _ him _ to do a set at their club. Or he was on tour and there wasn’t a ‘no’ among the possible venues.

“You know some guy won that radio thing?”

He only just looked up from his phone at that, “What radio thing?”

“They asked you a bunch of questions for them to win tickets. Obscure shit. Someone actually guessed right.”

A sound that may have been a laugh escaped Rich’s lips, and he shook his head, “Probably the same guy who likes to fuck around with my Wikipedia page.”

“Or you’ve got a secret best friend you never told me about.”

Something about that made his eyes narrow. It wasn’t anger. Not really. It was barely annoyance. Something, though, about that with the fact that he was minutes from going onstage just bothered him. It was a deep kind of bothering too. It was the kind that parties and a phone full of contacts couldn’t quite soothe. It was something that in the deepest recesses of his brain made him prickle. It was like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, but the itch stung him deep down like the worst case of poison ivy he’d ever had.

Rich shuddered. Actually shuddered. And he was cold despite the fact that he was wearing three layers. That was new. That was odd. It was odd for the rest of the time he sat backstage. It was odd the entire walk to the curtain. It was odd.

It was odd as he grabbed up the microphone, looked out into the crowd, and introduced himself.

\----

Myra didn’t want to go. She didn’t understand a.) how Eddie had gotten the tickets and b.) why he’d gotten them. She didn’t want to drive from Queens to Manhattan and neither of them were exactly New York Public Transport fans. She’d practically argued with him about it for days. Actually, no, what she’d done was worse than argued. She brought it up over and over again in that kind of way that felt like a lecture, like he’d done something wrong, and there was never really an end or a solution. It was just...there. And he found himself nodding along and wondering why he even cared enough to disagree.

Had she always been this way? In the moment just before they went down to the car it was like when he’d been driving before: everything was clear and sharp as crystal but muddy and foggy as a winter day in Maine. Eddie’s eyes narrowed as that thought crossed his mind, and for that one instant he couldn’t remember a time that he’d noticed the way Myra lectured him like she did. It was just a haze, but it was clear right now. Clear enough that he’d put his foot down that she could stay the fuck home if she wanted to, but he was going to that show.

And he’d gone. _ They _ had gone. Oh, Myra pouted in the car on the way there after his little outburst, but she was right there beside him. It was, without a doubt, probably the weirdest date night they had ever been on. It didn’t even _ feel _ like a date night. If Eddie were going to be honest with himself there had been a part of him that hoped she would have stayed home and he could have gone alone. That was a terrible thought. Eddie knew it was a terrible thought. He thought it, though. He thought it the whole way to the club and the whole way to the bar where he ordered two diet Cokes, and all the way to their seats. Right up the front. Right by the stage. Right when and where Eddie wished he could be there and also a hundred miles away.

Rich Tozier wasn’t really his kind of comedian. Then again there wasn’t really a ‘his’ kind of comedian in Eddie’s opinion. He liked funny. He liked to laugh. Back in college he’d even been accused of being funny a few times. Funny and a bit of an asshole. He didn’t mind that. But Rich Tozier? He did...voices. Well, he added voices to whatever stories he was telling. It was always a bit too much when his specials landed on Netflix.

Eddie had tried to watch them. He had watched them. He’d watched them, but they maybe only got a chuckle out of him. Everyone else seemed to lose their shit laughing, but there was something about the man’s delivery and the expression on his face that made Eddie wonder if it was all bullshit. Being deadpan was a thing, he knew that, but there had always seemed to be something _ off _ about the stories Rich Tozier told. Like they were true, but they weren’t. Like they had an element of something real but had been manipulated into something else. Eddie could never put his finger on it, but as he watched the man both on tv or in front of him now as he stepped out there was something...he didn’t know. Like there was something he was hiding.

It didn’t keep him from staring at Rich Tozier’s mostly smug face though.

\----

This wasn’t a tough crowd. Even for New York, which was not exactly his favorite place to do shows, they were pretty loose. Rich hit the beats perfectly, they laughed, he laughed, it was all a great comedic transaction. He was moving, even, walking back and forth across the stage as he told manufactured stories about everything from his love life to his childhood.

“And then I looked at her and said ‘you know, you remind me of my mother.’ So she gave me a Capri Sun and told me to get home before curfew. Is that...you think that’s weird?”

Cue laughter. It was actually a story a friend of his had told him years ago, but they’d rehashed it so much that it was hardly recognizable. The punchline always landed, though, and Rich looked out across the sea of laughing face he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. At least he did until he looked out at one table where there was a couple close to his age that was most decidedly _ not _ laughing. The guy looked almost spooked, like he’d seen a ghost. Like what Rich had said had sparked something in him and he was sweating it out at the table.

That was ridiculous. How could he know that? He was a comedian, not psychic. He didn’t know this guy. He didn’t know his dark eyes that were filled his concern. He couldn’t tell that this guy was upset he had a tendency to talk with his hands. He couldn’t see him sitting there but instead of him now in a pair of jeans and a jacket it was him then in a pair comically short shorts and a fanny pack strapped around his waist. Like he knew him. Like for one or two breaths he knew that was the guy who had won the tickets because he’d known some weirdly obscure fact. Like Rich knew this guy knew because he _ knew _ him, and it was all so clear but it was slipping away even in the moment that he grasped it.

“I…” he started, but the next story died on his lips. The next bit was something about his dad when he’d gone off to college, but as he stood there Rich couldn’t make the words come out. Other words came out. Words that in his head made so much sense, but were absolutely not part of any of his material. Hell, they were hardly even words inside his mind. They were flashes of pictures like in a flip book: summer, darkness, swimming, laughter, abject terror beyond the reaches of anything he’d ever known, arguments, joking about fucking _ his _ mom.

Eddie’s mom. He used to joke about that all the time, and he hadn’t seen or heard from Eddie in what had to be twenty years, but he was _ there _. Somehow he was there, and Rich’s heart started to pound like he’d run a marathon. No, he couldn’t lose it. Not now. How could he have forgotten? And how could he have known that face so well even after all these years? It didn’t matter. He did, and he needed to say something before he lost it again.

“When I was about thirteen I got hit in the face by a rock,” Rich said. The beat was off. He wasn’t really giving them enough time to laugh. They did, but he was already into the next line. “It was me and a bunch of friends, and this was the eighties so we were all out in this quarry, fighting with this group of guys who I swear tried to kill us one summer. We were trying to be the heroes and save another guy from this bunch of dicks, and I remember jumping up on this pile of...limestone? I don’t know, but it was something and just screaming ‘ROCK WAR!’ right before the lead dude just gets me right in the face and I went down like I’d been shot.” 

The words were coming faster, and his gaze wasn’t wavering from where it was locked with Eddie’s. It was like a game of chicken, a game like they played when they were barely old enough to know what the fuck they were doing, but they were playing it right then and there. And he knew. Eddie knew too. He had to. And he had to...he to _ know _ that Eddie knew.

\----

The words that were falling out of Rich Tozier’s mouth weren’t lies anymore. Of course they weren’t. How could they be? He _ remembered _. He remembered being there. He remembered Richie getting caught in the face by that rock. He remembered watching him give the finger to those crazy fuckers that attacked them for no reason. Eddie remembered.

Eddie remembered wild curly hair and glasses that were way too big for Richie Tozier’s face. He remembered riding around on their bikes in the summer heat until the back of his neck went pink and hot from sunburn. He remembered laughing as he whipped Richie’s glasses off his face with socked feet while they’d been practically tangled up in a hammock. 

He remembered.

He remembered screaming. He remembered his arm in a cast. He remembered his mother and how Myra was so much fucking like her. He remembered a smile and why he felt like the only place he was safe was in that clubhouse. He remembered the Rock War the quarry, and he remembered-

“Henry _ fucking _ Bowers-”

“Beep beep, Richie!” 

He said it before he could process it. Like it was nothing. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Loud. Annoyed. He didn’t want to hear about Henry Bowers. Henry Bowers had nearly killed them. It was like he was thirteen again. And he’d said it out loud. Loudly. In a more or less quiet club where the only sound was coming from the stage. A few people looked back, and Eddie could feel the horrified look Myra was giving him. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t look at anyone. Just him. Just Richie.

\----

_ “Beep beep, Richie!” _

The words stopped him in his tracks just like they used to. Well they didn’t always used to. Mostly he only stopped because that was usually the last straw before some stupid thirteen year old argument broke out. There was usually a slap-fight involved. He stopped, though. Henry Bowers was a step too far and he knew it. Except now Richie knew that Eddie knew too. He remembered. 

He couldn’t even remember forgetting. Not just the stories. Not just...a lot of things. He couldn’t even remember forgetting _ him _ . How could Richie have forgotten _ him _?

“Eds.”

The word, a whisper into the microphone, left him and then it was gone. It carried like a breeze through the room and suddenly Rich was aware that he had forgotten where the hell he was in the middle of his set. He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, and picked up with the next bit. Judging by the time he was a little behind, but that was fine. He’d figure it out. He was adaptable. He always had been and always would be.

Again, he looked back out into the audience. The air was a little weird, he had to admit, and as he studied the sea of faces he had to wonder where his mind had gone. From face to face, eyes to eyes, he watched and talked. He watched them all. They laughed, he laughed, and by the time his set ended everything felt more or less normal. More or less. There was a lingering feeling of...something. Rich couldn’t put his finger on it. For a second it was like he missed someone, someone he didn’t even know, and he had to shake it off as he headed backstage.

For the first time in a long time he felt nauseous.

\----

The ride home wasn’t completely unbearable. Again with the lectures, again with the no solutions and just circles about nothing, and again with the fact that Myra was so much like his mother. That realization hit like a ton of bricks. He’d...deal with that eventually. Maybe.

That wasn’t on his mind, though. Not now. As they rode home Eddie couldn’t help a feeling of discomfort in his chest. It wasn’t the asthma. No, it wasn’t tight quite like that. It just...ached. Like he’d lost something. But he hadn’t, though. He’d won, if you were to ask anyone. He’d won.

He was lucky to get that one night. 

They were both lucky, both he and Richie, to get even that one moment. Even if it couldn’t stay.

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened.
> 
> You can always find me on Tumblr! @sallyamongpoison


End file.
